Bringing New Life to Seemingly Useless Gen Carts...

[HeavyMetalMe]

So, numerous times I've seen the Genesis/Mega CD Development unit on ebay (which there are two now, currently), and I mentioned it to a long time, older friend of mine. Jokingly, we discussed the idea of putting out old, oop games, and as we kept talking the conversation got a little more serious, and we had some questions I'm hoping to get answered.

My idea/question is this- sports games are dead weight in my opinion. Every time I go to a retro game shop, they always sell old Genesis sports carts for less than a $1. Would it be possible to take all these sports carts, swap some of the old chips with new ones, and use either the development unit or something else to flash a different game on to it?

Or am I just dumb?

[racketboy]

My limited knowledge tells me they aren't re-writable carts.

[HeavyMetalMe]

I figure as much, but I'm wondering if one has the ability to swap out chips that hold the information for he game, and toss in new ones, then transfer the game... Maybe I'm just crazy for thinking all this.

[racketboy]

It's just my educated guess.
Maybe somebody else knows more....

[diehllane]

Well, they do make repogrammable flash carts. The ones I know of hook up via a parallel port on the computer.

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showth ... p?p=385937



But as for reusing the boards and swapping chips, I don't believe it works that way. If it did, my guess is that it would be like the NES and you'd need a game with a similar map to put the other chip into.

[Scooter]

Well, how do you suppose this guy is doing it?: http://www.playgeneration.com/

I assumed he was simply using old carts/ROMS but once they are programmed they can't be reprogrammed can they? Can you still buy blank ROM chips somewhere? Seems like it would be a whole lot of work to remove them and resolder in a new one not to mention having to have the exactly correct kind of board to put it on (and how would you determine which board is correct for a given game?).

[marurun]

You'd probably have to buy an EPROM programmer and some EPROM chips. And you'd desolder the original ROM chips and replace them with properly programed EPROMs. Simple, yet not. Because there's the issue of making sure the ROM format is right before writing to the EPROM and so forth.

[ott0bot]

It may end up being more expensive than just buying the real version of the game!

But you could make a giant scuplture or wall mural with the carts.

[elph]

That looks like CMYK printing on the labels/paper stuff. Generally that's pretty pricey. He might know someone in Hong Kong who can manufacture new carts- that seems more practical to me.

[marurun]

The NES Reproductions guy programs EPROMs and he does the work for about $25 for most games and has nice printed labels. And he has to program 2 EPROMs for each game the way NES cartridges sift out. No, I doubt he gets new stuff manufactured. More likely he uses existing and EPROMs. EPROMs are cheap, especially in bulk, and especially at the small sizes needed for console games. A programmer is an expense, but once you buy it you don't have to buy it again.